


Avoiding Peter Johnson

by without_a_box



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, Post-HoO
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 20:37:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/without_a_box/pseuds/without_a_box
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.”<br/>-Richard Siken</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. kairos

**Author's Note:**

> first percy jackson fic, please forgive me

When Percy was a teenager he couldn’t imagine life without Annabeth, now that he was twenty-five, living alone in New York with a full time job, it was pretty damn easy.

 

The two of them had only been separated for almost two years but some days it felt like a lot longer. At first they could do it, they had defeated Gaea, they had survived Tartarus, they had stopped the Romans from destroying camp. But it all went downhill from there.

 

The nightmares were a problem, a huge problem, they never said it but they both knew it was better one the other wasn’t there waking the other up. Then came college, Annabeth went off to some fancy place and Percy was left just barely making it into some local place. And after all that was done, Annabeth was always up on Olympus, helping them rebuild, designing, and just being herself.

 

It really was just easier to break it off. They still saw each other on occasion when they visited camp, but to the Aphrodite’s children’s dismay, there was just no chance of them getting back together.

 

So two years down the line, Percy finally got his own apartment. It’s a tiny place, probably not the best neighborhood, but its cheap and the landlord doesn’t give two stuffs if your rent is a day or so late.

 

Percy’s working at a movie cinema, it’s a good job, not really busy, they like him there. No monsters have attacked him yet, not like they did in that coffee shop he worked in seven or eight months ago.

 

The manger likes him because girls tend to come in when they see Percy, and come back to try and flirt with him over and over. Percy thinks he should probably say something about this but can’t bring himself to care when the manager gives him a little extra pay.

 

He’s just out shopping when he spots the book, his co-workers and some customers had talked about it but Percy himself had never actually seen it before. It’s sitting with a few other best sellers and looks kind of out of place. It’s a small book, with some non-descript artwork on the cover underneath the title and above the author.

 

It takes Percy a moment to unscramble the title and even longer to read the author, but after a few minutes he is able to make out ‘Avoiding Peter Johnson’ by ‘Nicholas Demre’. He buys it because it reminds him of being a kid again. It reminds him of a time before the war, before everything went upside down.

 

-

 

He has a weekend off, so he spends it at camp. Some of the Romans were visiting and helping train some of the year-rounders’. Percy just wanted some peace and quiet; he had spent the last month slowly inching through the book. He expected some type of cheesy romance but it was kind of quite good.

 

He sat on the edge of the pier, toes brushing the surface of the water, laughter and shouts could be hear further down the beach.

 

The characters of the book seemed familiar put he just couldn’t put his finger on it. It didn’t seem like the kind of book you would expect to gain the popularity that it had gotten.

 

He had just reached the climax of the book, the main character was finally confessing his feelings to the other, when Hazel appeared out of nowhere.

 

‘Oh, you’re reading that?’ She squinted of the title but it was obvious she had seen the book before.

 

‘The gods! Hazel, warn a guy would ya?’ Percy jumped ever so slightly; she seemed to have adopted her brother’s habit of appearing from the shadows.

 

‘Good book?’ She grabbed it out of Percy’s hands and slowly read the page that he had just.

 

‘Yeah, better than expected.’ He took the book back and dog-eared the page and set it aside.

 

‘So, he told you then?’ She slipped off her shoes to dip her feet in the water.

 

‘Who told me what?’ He moved the water back and forth, splashing it up their shins.

 

‘Nico.’ She tapped the cover of the book, ‘That’s his book.’

 

He gapped at her, unbelief clear across his face, ‘Nico?’

 

‘Oh crap he didn’t tell you.’ She scrambled to her feet, scooping up her shoes as she jogged away, ‘Just ignore everything I just said. Sorry!’ She called back to him.

 

Percy watched as she bumped into Jason, they exchanged words, and kept glancing back at Percy who was still at the pier, but now half-turned and only one foot still in the water. He gripped the book tight in his hands, but carefully as not the rip the cover.

 

Suddenly he understood, why he recognized the characters, the style of writing, the voice of the author.

 

It was all Nico, and he didn’t know how he could be so stupid as to not notice it. It was even in the title. Peter Johnson, Percy Jackson.

 

He remembered the last time he had seen Nico, slipping away into the shadows, a short while before he and Annabeth had broken up.

 

Percy held the book to his chest as he ran off; someone had to know where Nico was staying now a days.

 

Hazel had already left Jason and went back to some games that the campers were playing down the beach. Jason waited for Percy to finally make his way over. He raised an eyebrow and shifted his mouth so his scar seemed more prominent.

 

‘Hazel spilled the beans?’ He said once Percy stopped in front of him, eyeing the book in Percy’s grasp.

 

‘You wouldn’t have happened to have seen Nico lately have you?’ His fingers traced the raised words of the title.

 

‘And why would you want to see him? The last time I heard the two of you weren’t very close.’ He moved the take the book from Percy but he held the book even tighter.

 

‘We’ve been out of contact the past couple years, my fault mostly, but I’ve been thinking of speaking to him again soon anyway.’

 

Jason sighed and gave Hazel a look; she was still watching them from afar. She nodded ever so slightly but that seemed to be some sort of sign.

 

‘He’s in New York.’ He said, ‘Give me a pen,’ Percy pulled Riptide out of his pocket, putting the cap on the end and handing it to Jason, who then scribbled an address on Percy’s hand.

 

‘Thanks,’ He said, putting the pen back in his pocket and was about to run off before Jason grabbed his wrist.

 

‘Don’t make me regret this.’ His tone threatening, like a promise of something.


	2. l'appel du vide

Fuck publishers, fuck dyslexia, fuck Rachel, and _fuck_ Percy Jackson.

 

When Nico decided he was going to be a writer in New York the first thing he did was find a place to stay that wouldn’t give him grief if he couldn’t pay the rent on time.

 

Enter Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who, with her vast amounts of money, would allow Nico to stay with her.

 

Apollo was not into the idea at all at first, but Nico bluntly told the god he was gay. The god looked Nico straight in the eyes and told him he wouldn’t tell Aphrodite about this tiny bit of information if he would keep an eye an Rachel and makes sure she stays clear of boys.

 

He agreed of course, who knows what the goddess of love would do if she found out. She could already have found out from a certain asshole of a god, but he didn’t know.

 

Living with Rachel had its ups and downs. She complained about his preference to darkness and he complained about how her painting seemed to travel all the way out of her studio and somehow make it into the fridge.

 

But she was helpful in some ways, picking up when he was slipping into another language when writing (Italian, Ancient Greek, Latin), kept his location a secret from those who he did not knowing where he was, and telling him to sit down and stop complaining because ‘goddamn it Nico, the reason you’re staying with me is so we can be starving artists together, and we are not starving artist if one of us is not being an artist.’

 

She had a way with words that way.

 

She was also the one to make him put on an honest to the gods suit and send him off to publishers. The kind of publishers who actually liked his book, and wanted to sell it.

 

And that scared Nico greatly.

 

Even after Nico had met the publishers, and might have been slightly rude to them, they still liked his book and wanted to sign him.

 

The next year was a bunch of advertising, and editing and a book tour around the state. Then he was back at home, with Rachel, and was watching the book gain more and more popularity. But that never changed daily life.

 

It was a week after Rachel had thrown Nico’s prized jacket out the window, the jacket that Nico had owned since he was twelve, and also the jacket that Rachel hated with a fiery passion.

 

He had put it down for a minute and when he turned around Rachel had dunked it in a pot of bright pink paint. Before Nico could open his mouth she had opened the closest window and chucked it out.

 

He ran over just to see it land on the sidewalk. A couple of people glanced up and down but continued walking, as if they were thinking _what can you do, this IS New York._

 

To say Nico was pleased with Rachel would be a complete and utter lie.

 

They spent the next week arguing with each other over every tiny thing. From Rachel’s bad habit of scribbling down random fortunes in Ancient Greek on the furniture to Nico’s tattoos that he had hidden from Rachel for the past month.

 

Nico had just stepped out of the bathroom after having a shower, completely forgetting that Rachel was home.

 

He was leaning over to tie up his boots when he heard a shout of, ‘When the hell did you get that?’

 

He turned around to see a fuming red head pointing at his back.

 

It took Nico’s mind to process what she was talking about when he remembered the tattoos that he had got on his back a month ago.

 

‘Uh, nothing.’ He pulled on a t-shirt and was slinking away from her.

 

‘Nothing my ass, I told you that you weren’t allowed to get my design done, I told you.’ She yelled at him.

 

‘Well sorry, I really wanted it, you knew I loved that painting, I knew you would never let me,’ He yelled back at her.

 

‘It’s a tattoo Nico, those things are permanent, and paintings are different.’ She stomped her foot and hair fell out of her messy bun as she stormed over to the son of Hades.

 

‘Gods Rachel, get a grip,’ He opened the door planning to make a run for it when he saw sea green eyes and messy black hair.

 

He barely processed that fact that Percy _fucking_ Jackson, was on doorstep when he slammed the door in his face.

 

He turned face to face with an extremely Oracle.

 

‘Now your slamming the door in peoples faces, don’t you dare try to shadow travel,’ She ranted as she noticed him trying to find a dark corner, ‘the place smells like sulfur when you do that.’

 

He pushed past her, but she grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him over to the door and opened it.

 

Percy looked surprised to see the position that the two of them were in. Rachel’s grip on Nico slacked when she saw who was actually at the door.

 

Nico took the chance to push past them both and try to escape to the elevator.

 

‘You forgot your jacket,’ She commented.

 

‘I didn’t forget it, you chucked it out the window.’ He jabbed the button in effort to get away from Percy, he had avoided him for this long, were the Fates against him or something.

 

It was his lucky day when the elevator showed up, Nico was in and closed the door before Percy could even call out to him.

 

Thanks gods.


	3. tacenda

Percy was still standing there, dumbly staring at the closed elevator door when Rachel gestured for him to come inside.

 

‘You’re not going to get anything done now, he’s long gone.’ She said.

 

Percy followed her in and she closed the door. The apartment was big-ish, well bigger than his. It had random paint splatted all over the walls and furniture. Sharpies and pencils and paintbrushes, littered every available space.

 

As Percy rushed down the hall following the redhead in front of him he noticed random Greek sentences written on walls and doors and even a few on the floor.

 

Rachel turned into the kitchen, which seemed to be one of the cleaner places in the apartment, but seemed to have the most writing.

 

She pulled up a seat next to the counter and pushed another one towards Percy with her foot as she pulled out a green Sharpie.

 

She was still the same person Percy had met years ago, frizzy red hair, holey clothes, and drawings on her shorts.

 

Percy sat down and looked at her, she looked back, almost expectantly.

 

‘So, Nico has been living here?’ He asked.

 

‘You know you’re beautiful, right?’ She asked, scribbling on the surface of the counter.

 

‘Rachel…’ Percy said warily.

 

‘I mean really, model material right here, body of a god you have. And what do you do with your life, read books and work at a movie theater.’ Her eyes flicked up every few seconds.

 

‘What else am I supposed to do? I was never meant to live this long! I wasn’t meant to live at all!’ He jumped up and slammed the book he had been clutching onto the counter. ‘I was meant to die a long time ago, I was meant to love Annabeth and die for her, I was meant to die fighting for the gods, I was meant to be a hero. Let’s get real Rachel, I wasn’t never meant to be a person; I was a sword and a shield. I murdered and maimed with my bare hands, how can you come back from that? The answer is; you don’t. I survived hell and wars, and saw my friends die over and over. There is no coping with that, there is no demigod therapist for that, because we aren’t meant to live!’

 

His voice grew higher and higher as he pushed his hair back continually.

 

‘Percy,’ Rachel was shocked, and stared wide-eyed at him, ‘the gods-‘

 

‘The gods don’t care Rachel!’ Thunder boomed in the background, ‘The gods aren’t fair or just, they are mean and cruel, they don’t care about us.’ Percy slapped the book, ‘Why did he write this? This is not fair, life is not fair, I’m not meant to be here, people are not meant to say this about me, and I’m not meant to be loved.’

 

‘And that is why we love you Percy,’ She grabbed his hands and pulled him into a hug, ‘because you are beautiful, and we saw that, Nico saw that.’

 

They separated from each other, there was a silence in the room, but it was a New York silence, the type that had music flowing through the air and chatter and traffic drifting up from the street.

 

Rachel opened her mouth to say something when Percy interrupted her, ‘What are those?’ His fingers traced the words she had written during Percy’s rant.

 

Phrases such as, “Susan will break her left leg” and “Harry will propose to Louie” littered the bench top.

 

‘Oh, those are everywhere, sometimes I just doodle them, it drives Nico mad. Just the other week he was reading this one I had written on his door and he just lost it.’ She smiled at Nico’s behavior.

 

‘What did it say?’ Percy had stood up and was now walking around reading the ones that covered the cupboard doors.

 

‘Um, I can’t remember, it’s just down the hall though, the greeny-blue one.’ She pointed to Nico’s door.

 

Nico’s door had many Nico related phrases on it such as, ‘Nico will lose his socks’ and an older one that said ‘Nico will be published.’

 

The one that Rachel was referring to said ‘Perseus will be loved’.

 

Percy traced the words over and over; he could imagine Nico standing in this exact spot, reading these exact words. These vague words that caused more questioned than answered. Scratches ran through the name, as if Nico was trying to rub out the identity, as if getting rid of the name would cause the prophecy to become null and void.

 

‘What does it mean?’ Percy said, moving his hand away as the ink smudged slightly.

 

‘It means exactly what it says,’ Rachel leaned against the wall, she read the words, ‘”Perseus will be loved.”’

 

‘That doesn’t help anyone now, does it Rachel?’ He stared into her eyes, in her years of being the Oracle that had adopted a soft green glow that mortals were unable to pick up on.

 

She grinned at the taller man before pushing off the wall and waltzing down the hall away from him, ‘You’re welcome to wait for him, or go out looking, but I’m telling you now, Nico does not get found unless he wants to be.’

 

Percy turned back to the words on the door before opening it and waiting inside.

 

-

 

Nico didn’t return for a few hours, he showed up muttering something about seasons and dragging his sword behind him.

 

Percy was lying back on the bed, half asleep with a book on his face. Not Nico’s book but some other that had been lying around.

 

As soon as Nico had slammed the door shut Percy had sat up straight and the book flew across the room and into the wall opposite.

 

‘Percy…’ Nico was shocked that Percy had waited for him.

 

‘Nico...’ Percy scrambled to grab the book, as if it was his lifeline, as if it was the only thing that was going to protect him.

 

Their eyes meet and Nico raised his sword before dropping it pathetically.

 

‘Why do I even bother?’ He sat on the bed next to Percy, ‘What do you wanna talk about?’

 

 


	4. eleutheromania

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well i just remembered i needed to post this like a week ago  
> so to any person who still reads this sorry about that

‘Some days I can’t believe it has come to this,’ Percy said, twisting his fingers together.

 

‘Yeah.’ Was Nico’s short reply, he was spinning his sword, tip pointed in the floor, creating a small hole.

 

‘I still see you as that scared ten year old some days. Playing with your Mythomagic cards, and tugging on your sister’s selves.’

 

‘Sometimes, I see you as that half dead seventeen year old who just braved Tartarus with only his girlfriend and a sword.’

 

‘I was an idiot.’ Percy glanced at Nico from the corner of his eye.

 

‘That nearly killed me, seeing you holding onto that ledge, if I could stretch that little bit more, if you could reach that little bit farther. Then you wouldn’t have changed, I know people always say that you’re fine now, and you would say the same thing, but I know Tartarus did something to you, it did to me.’ Nico stared at him before blinking furiously and quickly adding, ‘But you had Annabeth, and you’ve always had her so yeah.’

 

‘Me and Annabeth broke up, Nico.’ Nico’s sword fell to the floor with a thump.

 

‘What?’ He whispered.

 

‘Yeah, like, two years ago.’

 

Nico sighed, ‘So this is what happens when I try to avoid people for a few years.’

 

The silence was deafening, the two of them barely shifted, they were just staring at their hands.

 

‘It wasn’t working out, like, I know I said I’d never leave her, but I’m not trying to blame her or anything but she was the one to leave me. After all we had been through together, we just started to remind each other of the bad times instead of the good. We just couldn’t do it anymore, sometimes I think demigods shouldn’t be allowed to live this long, we shouldn’t be allowed to find someone so young because as we get older we stop being able to deal with the trauma.’

 

Percy finally turned to Nico and caught him staring at him, like this mystical thing that had appeared in Nico’s room.

 

‘Why do you look at me like that?’

 

Nico gives him a half smile, ‘How couldn’t I?’

 

Nico felt like crying, he never knew this Percy, this Percy who had been suffering alone, this Percy who looked so much like a child as he held the book in his hands so desperately, as if it would make some change.

 

But he still looked so defiant.

 

Nico could still remember so clearly what Percy looked like when he had escaped out of Tartarus. His once bright Camp Half-Blood shirt was torn and burnt and frayed; covered in dirt and blood and grime. It hung off his bony shoulders showing how thin he had become. One arm was holding Annabeth upright and the other was clutching his side as if he had been injured. Riptide was being held up by a slight curve of his fingertips. The bags under his eyes were so deep and dark you could see the hell he had been though.

 

But he smiled because he was Percy, and when gods and titans and every other bloody thing on this planet tried to beat him down it didn’t work. He let himself be dragged through Tartarus, because he was Percy and no one could stop him.

 

‘When I first met you, you were this hero, saving my sister and I from danger; you were my card game come to life. And then the years past and everything went to hell, and you were suddenly this person who had let my Bianca die, and no one wanted anything to do with me. So I went off and found Hazel and a new place, somewhere where no one knew you, where no one knew me as that creepy little kid who lost his sister and ran away.’

 

Suddenly the words are spilling over his lips at a speed as though they couldn’t escape his mouth fast enough.

 

‘You’re gorgeous, and handsome, and strong, and modest, and perfect,’ He looked him straight in the eyes, ‘and that is why people love you, and that is why people avoid you. Do you ever realise what you do to us? What gives you the right to come into our lives and uproot every damn thing! Do you know what you do to us? You make us wanna be better people, you make us wanna impress you. We want Percy _fucking_ Jackson to remember us. When you walk out, we force ourselves not to follow you, you play a dangerous game and we do not want to be pieces. We do not want to be manipulated, we do not want to die. We want to live, we want to live for you, and you don't even notice it. WE WANNA BE LOVED BY YOU! I JUST WANNA LOVE YOU!' He looked down at the ground and whispered in a small voice, 'I just wanna be loved.'

 

Percy sat there, the book fallen from unsteady hands as they reached out to the boy in front of him.

 

Nico knew he looked like a mess but Percy wasn’t much better, his black hair stuck up at the wrong angles and stormy eyes were wide and knowing.

 

 ‘So I decided I would hate you, I hate you because you have made loving you impossible and inevitable and inescapable because you are back here and I still hate you but I still love you too. And you made it too hard to say that because if you don’t scream no one is going to listen. So I wrote it all down and chucked it at the world because the camp knows who you are, but those people out there don’t and those people don’t know about the creepy little kid from the wrong time loving the wrong person,’ Nico had jumped to his feet by this point and was screaming, his voice trembled and his knees shook, ‘And I can’t, I just can’t take loving you as this person who was too distant and too great to know me.’

 

Percy stood up finally, and pulled Nico into a massive bear hug, one that would rival even Frank’s.

 

‘Let me love you then.’ He whispered into his ear.

 

That was enough for Nico to finally crumble and start sobbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry


End file.
